Newsletter of the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center

February 27, 2017

Highlight on NIWRC’s Digital Resources & Other Resources

NIWRC Digital Resources Now Available!

Special Collections: For Teens is developed to highlight the issues, resources and other suggestions for engaging Native youth in our communities about healthy relationships and related tools. This is designed for Native youth programs, tribal coalitions, domestic violence programs, educators, advisors, and community members to obtain resources, education and other material to use in their delivery of services.

February 2017 Restoration Magazine Volume 14, Issue 1: The Restoration of Sovereignty & Safety magazine is a publication dedicated to informing tribal leadership and communities of emerging issues impacting the safety of American Indian and Alaska Native women. The name of the magazine, Restoration of Sovereignty & Safety, reflects the grassroots strategy of the Task Force that by strengthening the sovereignty of Indian nations to hold perpetrators accountable the safety of Native women will be restored. The magazine is a joint project of the NCAI Task Force, the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, and Clan Star, Inc. It is produced and made available during national NCAI conventions and the annual USDOJ – Tribal VAWA Consultation. Print Delivery Subscriptions Available $ 30/Individual, $100/Institutional (Institutional subscriptions receive three (3) print copies per issue).

“Sold for Sex: Survivor Stories” (28 Minutes) focuses on women who have been trafficked. This program includes:the powerful stories of three different Nebraska trafficking survivors; interviews with experts on how people become trafficking victims, and why the crime is often not reported or punished; and perspective from more than 20 Nebraska trafficking survivors compiled for a new report.

“It clearly illustrates that this is in all of our backyards,” she said. “No ZIP code or neighborhood is immune — sex trafficking is happening in our communities.” The Human Trafficking Initiative (HTI) is supported by the Women’s Fund of Omaha and funded by The Sherwood Foundation. The research of HTI is conducted through the Heider College of Business at Creighton University.

STAND WITH US: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Quebec

In 2014, the Quebec Native Women’s association was granted a small amount of money from the Quebec Ministry of Justice to work on the issue of MMIW in the province. Before moving forward though, our organization insisted that the question of MMIW in Quebec had not yet been documented, and needed to be in order to insure appropriate and adapted intervention. As such, the organization hired an Indigenous research assistant, and together, Annie Bergeron and Alana Boileau interviewed over fifty people to explore the matter of MMIW in the French speaking province.

Frontline workers, justice file holders, First Nations police, and MMIW family members alike highlighted the importance of understanding the complexity of the MMIW issue and its roots in the history of colonization; the existence of family violence in Indigenous communities that has to be recognized and fought against, but also contextualized and understood; the challenges of working in one’s own community and the lack of adapted services and material for social workers and others; the tense and loaded relationship between Indigenous people and the police; and lastly the need for better support for MMIW families.

The ”Stand with us” report ends with five courses of action: (1) supporting women and their families; (2) favouring collaboration between service providers; (3) educate and raise awareness about Indigenous women and their history; (4) focus on solidarity and mutual aid; (5) develop participative prevention and intervention strategies against violence.